


Play the Sanctimonious Part (Of a Pirate Head and a Pirate Heart)

by spinninginfinityboy



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Compliant until 3x05, Canon Disabled Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild canon divergence post 3x05, Missing Scene, Past Miranda Barlow/Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Pirates, Season/Series 02, Season/Series 03, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:48:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25579843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinninginfinityboy/pseuds/spinninginfinityboy
Summary: Any crew of pirates "agree on certain articles, which are put in writing, by way of bond or obligation, which every one is bound to observe, and all of them, or the chief, set their hands to it." (- Exquemelin). Luckily for John Silver, he never was much of a pirate.orSilver breaks every rule laid out before him, and is somehow rewarded each time.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/John Silver, Miranda Barlow & Captain Flint | James McGraw
Comments: 61
Kudos: 162





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from _Oh, Better Far to Live and Die_ from Gilbert & Sullivan's _The Pirates of Penzance_. Aiming to update twice weekly.
> 
> At the time of writing I am on S3 E6 of Black Sails and it has been a while since I watched much of S2, so please forgive any inaccuracies and call it minor canon divergence in the name of fun and shenanigans.

**I.** _Every man shall have an equal Vote in Affairs of Moment._

No two men are created equal. There are those who say otherwise, of course; although in Silver's experience, they too are of uneven footing. All men are equal under god, says one; all men equal in birth, says another, and is countered by death from a third. Idealists talk of striving towards an equal outcome, as if the orphan in the gutter could ever reach the same heights as the officer in his braid, as if the man born to be king would ever call his brother the man born to be a slave. Silver pays none of them any mind. The god they preach is not his, his birth an old regret, and if he is to be equaled in death he shall be long past capable of caring. The true measure of a man is in his fellows.

Billy, of course, is one such man with many fellows. His position holds him strong and well enough liked to be worth fearing. In Silver's more treacherous moments he wonders if his looks haven't something to do with it, for it's plain to see the heads he turns. Yet, despite his rank and standing, Silver knows that he surprised him with his swift reckoning of the votes, and it is all he needs to make his way aboard.

Yes, Billy is a man of import, but not so much as Stevenson, who speaks almost as well as Silver himself and has the skill to talk his crew mates to his position. A kind word in just one ear, a drink in just one hand could gain a man the favour of a dozen. Or what about O'Brien, his constant chatter at the ropes and songs from in the rigging showing him to be perceptive and quick to notice what his brothers need? Williams, the infernal gossip, or even Randall, poor Randall, whose word is never yet disputed among the crew? Every man has a vote, but no two voters are made with equal weight.

It takes Silver no more than two days to get a sense for such men, and to ingratiate himself with them. A better bowl of whatever soup he can muster, a larger mug of ale, a bawdy joke, a friendly jibe. The cook sees everyone. The moment he knows for sure he is winning his campaign comes on the evening of his fourth day aboard, when Stevenson confides in him that Jones, the rigger’s mate, has done him wrong and left him looking for some justice. With a shrug, Silver spits in Jones’ bowl, and Stevenson laughs.

“Your humour is better than your cooking,” he tells Silver, clapping him about the shoulder. “No wonder we took your ship so easily.”

“What can I say? I was on your side even then.”

Foreign though the words feel, Silver realises there is some strange truth in them. He has found his feet with a surety which surprises even himself. In barely half a week he has carved himself a place, and though he does not sit as well as he wishes, he is in far enough to keep digging. And in picking at the skin of the ship, insinuating himself within its daily workings, reaching a finger to its fluttering pulse, one impossible truth is beginning to emerge.

Captain Flint has the least voting sway aboard the ship.

It is clear almost straight away, no matter how much it confuses Silver. Flint is the captain, for fuck’s sake, he should command these men with ease, a wave of his hand and have them bent to his will. Instead he seems a slave to their every changing mood. The days Silver spends tied to the _Walrus_ and her crew stretch out into weeks and with every turn of the sun about the yardarm his tether reels him closer to the captain.

The crew vote often, more often than he would have credited a pirate crew to vote. Though Flint is evidently more than practiced in the art of hiding his true feelings, Silver has spent his life reading tension, and it is easy to see which votes matter most to the captain even when they do not mention him. It is a simple matter of self-preservation for Silver to talk the relevant parties round and let their good reputations do the rest. After all, no matter how clear Flint makes his disdain, he at least has accepted his vested interest in keeping Silver alive. Another captain will most certainly be less amenable.

Of course, there are some people even Silver cannot convince.

The mutiny, when it comes, could not have been at a worse time, and when Dufresne draws his pistol Silver is astonished to find he fears the bullet less than he fears the look in Flint’s eyes. Swallowing his heart, he lights the fuse and lets his choice fly to war.

When the ship is taken from them it comes at the cost of blood, paid twice over. They say that it is thicker than water, but the way the ocean clutches at his legs may just convince Silver otherwise. Silver curses like the sailor he swears he isn’t until his lungs fill with the ocean, until his lungs fill with blood, until he empties both upon white sand and dives back in.

The weight of Flint in his arms is all that stops his fevered mind from drifting out to sea.

Silver thanks the stars above that he comes to his senses before Flint awakes. The explanation is rushed, unstructured, and in his eyes Silver knows himself to be pleading, _this wasn’t me._

There is no sign of friendship in his gaze, but Flint reaches out a hand to let Silver help him up and holds it a heartbeat longer than necessary in thanks. It is only fair to repay the favour and lead Flint to the outcrop to see the wreck for himself as soon as he can stand.

“I swear,” Silver tells him, lying through his teeth, “I only wished you success in this venture. The men’s minds were set beyond my reach.”

“I wonder,” Flint says, “if five million dollars will buy them back.”

Silver shrugs. It is a fluid, easy movement, easier in the moment than breathing.

“If you know where to spend it wisely.”

Flint retracts his eyeglass, turns to Silver with a knife-slash grin. The ghost of Flint’s palm still weighs upon his skin as Silver finds himself, unbidden, smiling back. An anchor chain digs somewhere deep within his chest at the fondness in Flint’s tone.

“And there I thought you only good for nothing.”

“Dare I say this makes us friends?”

Flint looks away. An indulgent and incriminating part of Silver’s mind dares to imagine he’s still smiling.

“Don’t push it.”

Silver doesn’t.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you folks for the feedback so far!! I hope you continue to enjoy the story as much as I've enjoyed writing it

**II.** _No Striking one another on board; every man’s quarrels are to be ended Ashore._

Solomon Little was never born with that name, though he died in 1694. Scarlet fever was what they wrote down, and frankly every boy in the home was slight enough that the occasional empty coffin went unnoticed. From his unmarked grave crawled Adam Rogers, who lasted almost five years on the streets before he died, quietly and without much fuss, and John Silver, merchant sailor, shook the hand of Captain Parrish for the first time.

Twenty years and an immeasurable span of ocean have passed, but the name has never truly left him.

The first strike of his boot on the floor fails to raise a sound above the men’s open-mouthed chewing, never mind their chatter. Silver grits his teeth and grips his paper tight. Perhaps this is a fool’s errand. Yet there is no use in giving up before he tries, for he must earn his place aboard somehow, and saving Flint’s life twice hasn’t exactly done him any favours. He lifts his boot and braces himself before lashing out again at the deck. The impact sends a shudder up his leg. No such shudder passes around the crew. A third kick, fueled by all his frustration and the itch of Flint’s gaze boring into him, and one by one the men begin to raise their heads. A rigger spits a mouthful of food, if it could be called such, back into his bowl and snarls.

“What d’you want?”

Silver takes a breath, and remembers Solomon Little. Phantom bruises flare upon his skin. His first scar begins to itch.

“An account of goings-on, volume the first,” he begins, and is on the floor before he has finished the sentence.

Breathing becomes harder the longer he reads. The fists sinking into his stomach may have something to do with it. With dogged determination he makes his way further down the list, and sinks further to the floor with every blow.

When at last he has taken his beating and crawled – metaphorically, to his silent thanks, though it was a close thing – back to his table, Flint is wearing an expression Silver does not recognise. He hides it behind an insult and a gulp of watery ale.

“Idiot,” he mutters.

Silver glares. It is testament to his frustration that he doesn’t wince when the movement causes blood to run fresh from a cut above his eye. Flint’s thumb twitches.

“I don’t see you making yourself wanted,” Silver retorts.

“And here you have decided the men are wanting of a new punching bag.”

If he had been in lesser pain, Silver could have kicked him. He settles instead for snatching the ale from Flint’s unresisting hand and downing the dregs in a single swallow.

“You’ll see,” he says. Flint makes no reply save to glare at his mouth, watching his drink disappear.

The next day Silver stands up again, determined, and again all Flint sees is an idiot getting a beating. His ocean-deep eyes are the only colour Silver can see beyond the red of his own blood. Once the men have taken their fun he hands Silver a drink without comment.

A new fight, the same fight, every day. Dufresne, the bastard, is too preoccupied with himself to pay much mind to his men, and Silver reckons he would be unlikely to hold them back even if he did notice. They hardly have each other’s favour. And every day, Flint watches.

“Are you really going to keep doing this?” he says, softly, one evening over dinner. Silver almost spills his drink. There’s no way in hell the captain – for in Silver’s mind, the captain he remains – truly sounds as though he cares. These fights serve Flint. Once the men have worked their anger over on Silver, they have no resistance left for other argument. Silver bristles at the thought.

“Are you telling me you have a better idea?”

Flint raises an eyebrow.

“Better than inviting the whole crew to kick the shit out of you once a day? I’m sure there must be something.”

“Come up with it quick, then,” replies Silver. “Because frankly I’m starting to feel like the dairy goat.”

“What?”

“Fucked.”

Flint chokes on his drink. Silver suspects it’s the last thing he’ll smile at tonight, as he turns and makes his way down the deck.

“The goings-on of the day,” he calls.

“Fuck off,” comes a voice from suspiciously near Flint’s table. Silver squints.

As per usual the initial announcements are greeted merely with violence. Daily beatings have strengthened his tolerance for brutality, something he finds himself perversely proud of. Silver does not hit the ground, but stares past his attackers to Flint. At last, the men begin to turn upon each other. Satisfaction twists his mouth into a lopsided sort of smile as his captain’s eyes widen in surprise.

He limps back towards his seat, chaos unfolding in his wake, and sits down with a grin. The movement reopens his thrice-split lip, but Silver pays it no heed. Flint smiles, too; amusement tightening the creases by his eyes, his lip quirking, his brow loosening its habitual frown.

“Well done, Mr Silver,” he says. The earlier softness – dare he call it fondness? - has yet to leave Flint’s voice, and Silver is lost for words. He picks up his drink and hopes the bruises on his face hide his blush.

“I’m just glad the crew cut me off when they did. Randall was on the verge of telling me something even worse about a chicken.”

“God, don’t tell me,” Flint laughs – laughs! – and Silver has been knocked from his feet every day this week but hell, if this isn’t the most off-kilter he’s been since first boarding the _Walrus_.

“Aye, Captain,” he replies.

Flint’s eyes flash, lightning, and then all at once turn darker than a storm. The fondness Silver imagined there vanishes. He gets the feeling Flint is looking somewhere far away.

“Not yet,” he growls.

_You always are to me,_ thinks Silver, and swallows, the words tasting of their cause – the reckless, stupid taste of blood and ale.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter which started the fic and I am so excited to be able to post it

**III.** _The Lights and candles are to be put out at Eight O’clock at Night; if any of the crew, after that hour, remain inclined for Drinking, they are to do it on the open Deck._

There is something of the coffin about the hull of a ship. No matter his months at sea, Silver has never quite found himself able to shake it away. His hammock sways and with it his mind wanders, caught in the grey places between dream and waking and finding each to hold nothing but nightmares. Six feet or more above he can hear footsteps, men walking heedless of the waking, desperate souls beneath their feet. To his side the hull feels all too thin. How could such a splinter keep an ocean’s fathomless abyss from rushing in? Silver’s breath comes harsh and desperate at the weight of it all.

The planks creak and Silver feels his stomach roll with the ship. A churning, restless feeling. Sailors gossip like old wives and pirates gossip worst of all; they say that the sea gets in your blood, claims you and takes you until you can never hope to leave. Some nights he worries that he might believe them.

Somewhere in the direction of his feet, a man is snoring. Muldoon, he thinks, but cannot truthfully recall whether Muldoon is above deck on shift or not. Silver tries to count the seconds, time the beats between each breath. If he can match it to his heartbeat, perhaps he will find his way to morning. Of course, the world can hardly be so kind. The man snorts and coughs, and Silver cannot stand it. He hauls himself upright and walks, heedless of direction or thought. The walls of the hull lean in like the jaws of a trap.

Catacombs walled with bones, he thinks, hammocks filled with corpses too blind to see that they’re already dead, and the splintering wood sways and guides his feet towards the galley, where he knows he’ll find a half-bottle of rum that might cure his restless mind. His thoughts are so wracked with exhaustion that his hand is on the door before he realises what is out of place.

A lantern light flickers within the galley.

At once Silver awakens, the dregs of his dreams slipping away in favour of tension. The hilt of his knife is a comforting presence in his pocket, ever more present now. After so many years the shadows are a well-worn cloak about his shoulders. 

There are two distinct voices; Silver recognizes both fast enough to snatch the breath from his lungs. Captain Flint, exclaiming in disgust. His gut twists. He tells himself that it is the ship lurching on the waves, and has nothing to do with how easily he recognizes his Captain’s scorn. The second voice is less familiar, but there are only two women aboard the ship, and only one who would speak to Flint in such a way. Barlow.

“You are being childish.”

“I am doing what is best for my men.”

“What is best for your- and what is best for you, James?”

There is a pause. The smell of something burning, all too familiar, drifts beneath the door. A sudden movement, heavy-booted, from Flint.

“Miranda-“

“Shit.”

Silver grins to himself. Of course Flint would never love a woman who could not hold her own against him. There is a clattering of metal – pans against the stove, most likely, a hastily-salvaged meal.

“I always was the better cook,” comes Flint’s voice, a smile audible – Silver bites his lip. It’s true, he knows, but strange to hear Flint say so easily. In another world, it would be the words of a husband to his wife, fond, teasing. Another world.

“Don’t change the subject.” Mrs Barlow’s voice commands attention, enough to make Silver stand involuntarily straighter. “He’s gone, James, and you know as well as I how he would feel about you using his memory to hurt yourself. Allow yourself to feel something again.”

Something drops inside Silver. As though seized by the hand of Fate herself, the ship lurches against a wave, causing the door to swing open an inch or two. At Barlow’s words Flint’s face falls into something dark. Something hunted. A shiver runs through Silver’s chest. Flint looks like a ghost has passed through his heart.

_Feel something again. He’s gone._

Flint makes a sound unlike anything Silver could have believed human.

“Feel something in his name,” he spits. “Miranda – I am doing this for him. Don’t you see that I never stopped feeling? This- this rage, this fight, this ship, this goddamned fool’s errand, is all for him, to face Ashe for him once more. I feel more for him now than I ever felt. When we knew one another I was single-minded in my devotion. Now he is gone, and every breath of anger, hate, vengeance, victory, all is his, and all is yours, and I feel it all so fiercely it consumes me.”

“And love?”

Silver swallows thickly, suddenly unable to move. He should, he knows; every scrap of self-preservation he still possesses screams to run. Instead he watches as Flint closes off. The Barlow woman presses closer, pushing him, and Silver almost calls for her to run because Flint has turned to the stone of his name, and his edges are sharp enough to kill.

“What of love? Hope, James, and happiness? Are those not worthy too?”

The look on Flint’s face nearly brings Silver to his knees. How Mrs Barlow can stand the full force of it is unthinkable.

With the reverence of a baptism, heedless of the hellfire she approaches, she presses her forehead to his. It should have been a death sentence.

Flint crumbles.

“For Thomas,” she murmurs, soft as ripples in sand, “say to me you will try.”

“I cannot fathom feeling anything quite like it,” confesses Flint, hoarse and worn. “What we shared-“

“Is dead and buried. You are alive, James. Allow your heart to beat.”

Her voice, too, is choked with tears. Somehow it is that which returns Silver to his full awareness. He backs away, waiting until he’s out of sight from even an open door before he gives in to himself and turns and runs. The darkness takes him in whole. Silver lets it bury him.

In the silent mausoleum of his bed, he traces the words now engraved upon his mind. Knowledge is power, yet this is a weapon he cannot bring himself to wield.

Silver stares, sleepless, at the wooden beams above him until dawn.


	4. Chapter 4

**IV.** _He that shall have the Misfortune to lose a Limb in time of Engagement, shall have the sum of Six Hundred pieces of Eight, and remain aboard and Cared for as long as he sees fit._

Pain registers first, in some far-off foreign land. Silver doesn’t truly feel it. He looks upon the flat space where his leg should lie, and blinks in slow motion.

Darkness falls like an axe.

It feels like drowning in reverse when he awakes; a sluggish, tiresome crawl, his throat cramping as though thick with the sea floor’s muck. He coughs, and a strong arm hoists him upright while he vomits. When it seems he is finished – he is surprised, in truth, that he had anything in him to expel – the hands, firm yet gentle, roll him to his side. Silver hears the scrape of a bucket being positioned near his head.

“Sleep,” comes a whisper, almost inaudible. The planks upon which Silver is lying are soft as pillows compared to the aching fire in his blood. He obeys.

When at last he takes the first true breath of consciousness, Silver is not in his own bed. He is in a bed, in fact, a shock in and of itself on a ship comprised mostly of hammocks.

“Don’t sit up.”

Flint. It’s a tone which brooks no disagreement, so naturally, Silver disagrees, pushing himself upright. The movement sends a slash of agony through his skull and his vision turns black, leaving him gasping for air. A hand pushes him down, rough skin against his chest but a surprisingly gentle touch. Is he hallucinating? The long-missed but still familiar aftertaste of opium on his tongue suggests it’s possible, and his heart is inclined to agree, because there’s surely no universe in which it’s really Flint caring for him through his sickness. He’s still in Howell’s abattoir, the slaughterhouse they call surgery, half mad and dying on a blood-soaked bench.

It’s a good theory, right up until Flint mutters “Never listen, do you, you shit,” and Silver can’t dispute that.

“Surely,” he tries to say, but his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth and all that comes out is a hoarse gasp. A hand slips beneath his head. This time Silver opens his eyes, needing to confirm by a second sense where one might deceive him, and despite the blurriness in his vision there’s no mistaking the shock of ginger hair, nor the rings which clink against the side of the cup of water. Flint cradles him with remarkable care. The first sip of water is like a spark to gunpowder. Silver doesn’t have it in him to be ashamed by the way he moans greedily, opening his cracked mouth in a plea for more. Flint’s hand tenses. A ring tangles and tugs at his hair. Silver whines.

“Patience,” says Flint, smiling. Perhaps that part is the opium. Silver doesn’t think he’ll ever see such true affection aimed his way in waking. “No spit to speak and still he argues.”

“Surely,” says Silver again, and this time the words come free. “Surely you should be thankful.”

Another twitch of Flint’s hand. It’s an uncomfortable position to hold a man in, Silver reasons, and wriggles away just enough for his head to return to the pillow and allow Flint to withdraw.

“Thankful for your insubordination?”

“Thankful I am still myself. A John Silver who agrees…”

He trails off, coughing, and winces at the pain which flares behind his eyes. Flint finishes his sentence.

“Is no John Silver at all.”

He manages to muster a weak imitation of his usual grin.

“Well, you said it.”

Flint rolls his eyes.

“I should have kept you drugged.”

What was supposed to be a laugh comes out as a cough. Even just the brief interaction has taken a toll upon his system. Silver can feel himself slipping back to the darkness.

“Sleep,” says Flint again. “You need it.”

This time, Silver doesn’t argue.

When he wakes again the first thing Silver does is glare at Flint, propped half upright on a frankly improbable quantity of pillows that leave him, mercifully, almost facing Flint’s desk.

“Hold on, I’m in your fucking bed.”

“Good morning,” replies Flint absently, and puts his pen down. “Glad to see you’re regaining your powers of observation.”

Silver reaches for his water, takes a swig with only around half spilling down his chin, and tries again.

“Why am I in your fucking bed?”

“Because if we put you in beside the rest of the crew, you would have died.”

The captain’s voice – and he is captain, which is reassuring – is surprisingly matter of fact for someone discussing Silver’s own fragile mortality.

“Fuck off,” says Silver, and goes back to sleep.

Their conversations become a lot more lucid and a lot less pleasant as the days wear on. After a week, when infection takes him, Silver thrashes in the depths of a fever and begs Flint to kill him. Blue-green eyes filled to overflow with salt water gaze back. Silver pleads to be allowed to drown.

When Howell tries to coat his bruised and swollen flesh in foul salve, Silver screams, and lashes out with a foot which isn’t there. Flint pins him to the bed and averts his eyes when Silver curses his name. It’s considerate, he thinks distantly, not to let the dying man see the rage of the devil set to damn him.

“I don’t need your fucking help,” he gasps out one day in a moment of clarity, voice wavering and flickering with the lamplight. Flint doesn’t move from where he kneels, kneels before Silver’s flushed and trembling form, _oh, god_ , replacing the wrappings of his stump with maddening care.

“Good thing,” says Flint, “that I am not doing this for your benefit.”

“Fuck you,” says Silver, again. “What, then? Is all this so you have something to hold over me?”

“Shut up and drink your laudanum tea.”

Silver almost spits at the taste of it, but it’s worth it for the way the agony dulls. As he slips into unconsciousness, the bitter taste of tea giving way to the sweet relief of dreams, he imagines Flint standing.

“You shit. Don’t you dare leave me yet.”

Halfway unconscious, Silver laughs.

“Sold my soul to the devil months ago,” he manages, tongue weighted with laudanum. “Handsome fucking devil.”

“Shit,” says Flint again in the distance. _"Fuck."_

Silver slips away, and dreams of gentle hands.


	5. Chapter 5

**V.** _The Captain and Quartermaster are to receive Two Shares of a prize._

Silver’s thoughts are scattered and drifting idle on the mirrored sea. In all honesty he doesn’t know why he’s been trusted with a knife, but there is food needing prepared and his position as cook has been reinstated in the wake of Randall’s succumbing to the madness of dehydration. His hands work without input from his mind until a sharp pain brings him to awareness.

Blood drips onto the bowl, running thick and sluggish from a gash in his thumb. Silver laughs a little too close to hysterically.

“Protein for the men,” he says, a cracked breath audible to nobody but himself. The wound is precious liquid, but the taste of it salts his mouth and leaves him still as thirsty as before.

The taste of blood. The endless ocean green, so calm it kills. He wonders why he thinks so suddenly of copper, blinding against the sun, the lightning in the centre of the storm. Silver’s tongue darts out, drags dry across his lips. A longing stirs in his heart – every pulse, now, he feels it, defiant and dreadful life – calls out for salt and copper, oceans dark with blood. He never called himself a sailor. Perhaps he will die as one. It surely is the fever which has him yearning to press his lips to such a thing.

Billy pushes water into his hand. The temptation makes him shudder, almost overwhelmed with the desire to dash the damn thing to the floor, but he manages only to hand it back.

“Give it to DiAngelo,” he says, hoarse. “He’s dying.”

Billy does not listen, returns insistent every time. Silver refuses. As quartermaster, his duty must be to his men. He will not live by stealing what is theirs. The conviction snuck up without his knowledge or permission, but these men are _his_ , and Silver is dying, and he will die as one of them or not at all.

Billy stops trying, after that.

Time blurs. Two men kneel before him on the deck, and Silver shakes. Flint pulls his pistol without hesitation, and doesn’t. The darkness returns behind his eyes. Silver chokes down a lump in his throat.

“If you’re not strong enough to do what needs to be done, then I’ll do it for you,” says Flint. All Silver can do is watch the way his lips curl. Blood is gathered by the corner of his mouth; another man’s blood. _Don’t drink it,_ he wants to say, _the salt will only hurt you_ , but his mouth will not obey.

The ship is silent. No man has strength to breathe. Silver thinks, _I’m dying,_ and does not try to hide the way he turns his head, follows the path of the captain to his cabin. Shoulders steady as the topgallant yard; torn away by storm and tossed to sea.

His iron boot drags his leaden bones to follow.

Silver must have died at least five times since setting foot upon the _Walrus_. This time, he is almost certain he feels his heart stop, for it shatters so violently it surely cannot continue beating again. 

Flint does not even flinch in anger. This, Silver thinks, is the worst part; not just the sight of his captain, _his_ , on the floor in clear and evident agony, not just the tears unshed from dehydration, but the fact Flint hasn’t even the strength for rage? Silver sees it, and is lost. Without hatred to keep them together... he doesn’t dare finish the thought.

Approaching should be easy on the flattest sea the ship has ever seen, but dehydration sends him stumbling as treacherously as any storm. Silver falls to the floor and bites his lip almost straight through in an effort to keep from screaming as his damned peg makes his wound the point of impact. Maybe he screams nonetheless.

“Captain,” he says, and Flint recoils, sobbing. _Shit._ “Flint,” he tries, and prays it works for the only other name he knows turns his tongue to dust.

“Get out,” Flint begs. “Get out.”

Silver chokes back a sand-dry sob of his own.

“Where else would I go?” he asks. Flint does not answer. In a truly terrible way, it is a relief. If Flint had banished him, Silver fears he may have obeyed.

He crawls towards Flint upon his elbows, crying in agony at every forward drag of his leg. It is an eternity before he is close enough to touch.

“Flint,” he says again, for nothing else comes to mind beyond the helpless repetition of the name. “I…”

But what can he say? It’s okay, I understand, I’ll protect you; all are hollow. Empty. The only meaningful thing upon his tongue is too heavy by far to confess. Silver tastes copper again, and when he reaches out his hand brushes Flint’s hair. As though the simple touch is a summons, Flint rolls, helpless, towards Silver’s waiting arms. Silver laughs. He buries the sound in Flint’s hair.

“I have you,” he manages to sound out, barely there on empty, desperate breaths. The weight of Flint against his chest is hot and grounding, the sun around which Silver orbits, and all at once the gravity of his own grief hits him.

His leg is gone. His hope is gone, his gold is gone, his life is sure to follow. Silver’s shoulders begin to shake with unshed tears.

“Miranda-“ gasps Flint, and then, softer, “Silver… John…”

“Hush, now,” Silver says, dizzy. Who does he think he is, to comfort his captain, to dare assume he is capable? To quiet him like a squalling child? If he sees Silver as strength then Silver cannot bear to fathom how deep and dark his weakness. Funny; he would have bet his dying breath upon the opposite.

“The peace,” mutters Flint, looking past Silver to something he cannot see. “The answer… she says I cannot see. And she- my god, she’s gone and I-“

His shoulders buckle and Flint collapses once more into heaving, desperate sobs, from which no tears fall.

“I have you,” Silver repeats. The madness of thirst seizes him and Silver hauls himself closer, impossibly close. The pain becomes somehow distant, insignificant, as light as the breeze he can’t remember as Silver presses his bone-dry lips to Flint’s head. Flint lets out a long, slow breath. “I have you.”


	6. Chapter 6

**VI.** _If any man is to defraud the Company to the value of a dollar or more in Plate, Jewels, or Money, Marooning is his Punishment._

They are dead men, smote by a storm. No longer worthy even of the saviour’s anger, and must endure his indifference. Silver doesn’t believe in a saviour but he tastes the words and finds them truthful. Dead men.

Neither Flint nor Silver has spoken of the events in the captain’s cabin that day. They had lain together upon the wooden floor, entangled deep in arm and breath, until Flint had slipped into unconsciousness. Silver had braced him upright, fed him precious sips of water, even pulled a cushion from the slim pallet bed to lay the captain down upon. Each action hurt somewhere past the physical. When at last he had rolled Flint from his chest, the severing of their touch made his leg buckle and throb in sympathy.

“You cannot follow a man like that and then pick and choose when you want to deny him,” Billy had said. How little he knew of the depths of his misunderstanding. Every damned waking second for days, weeks, months, all Silver has done is deny himself, and tortured himself in silence with the idea that he is denying Flint the same. Every second of sleep, he has given in. He thinks that the imagined indulgence might be worse.

The whale carcass is a blessing from the devil. A blessing, in that it gave them precious chance at hope; and yet it is the devil Silver never believed in, the devil of horror stories whispered by boys and teachers, who takes his arm and holds the oars alongside him.

“They float when they rot. After they rot.” 

It’s true, Silver is painfully aware. Any hope is futile. Yet it is hope which lodges itself like a bullet wound in his gut. If they don’t try, every man on the ship will float the same.

Both men between them have hardly the strength to row, moving on nothing more than spite and desperation. The oars hardly ripple the water. Silver takes in the texture of the wood in his hand. He misses trees. He doesn’t want to die at sea.

“I stole it from you,” he says at length. Flint’s shoulders go stiff, but he does not turn.

“What?”

“The _Urca_ gold.”

There’s no need to clarify; there is only one thing Silver could possibly have stolen, only one thing of any value, and yet he says it, because he can no longer bear to be by Flint’s side with a lie tainting his words. Tainting his heart.

The truths spill from him, a flood in anticipation of water. If he had died, Silver would have been content to let his lies damn him. To live, he sees no option but this. By the time his confession is complete, he feels as though his lungs have filled with seafoam.

Flint has not moved. When he speaks, his voice is harsh as sand.

“Why are you telling me all this?”

Silver swallows. He should have predicted this question would come.

“So you can decide,” he says at last. “Decide to fight me, maybe kill me, and figure out a way of hauling yourself back to that ship alone; or acknowledge the fact that you and I would be a hell of a lot better off as partners than as rivals.”

His fate in Flint’s hands. Honestly, he’s surprised it took so long.

“What did you do with your share?”

And here is the truth.

“I gave up my claim to it.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Because I saw no way to hold it and remain a part of this crew. And without these men, all I am is an invalid.”

And here is the lie.

Silver blinks back tears despite the desert of his mouth and shivers despite the heat crawling upon his skin.

 _With you,_ he thinks. _With you, Flint, without you I am nothing._ He wants to vomit. Flint makes no move. An unnatural stillness settles over him. Does this mean Flint understands? Does this mean he doesn’t?

In that moment, Silver cannot tell which is worse.

He’s almost thankful for the sudden stench of carrion assaulting him.

“Oh, we can’t eat that.”

The carcass bobs and belches a foul stench so nauseating it’s almost physical. Silver prods at it and gags. Even the smell getting in his mouth, smearing his insides with the miasma of it all, turns his empty stomach.

Just as he is about to suggest turning back – and god, the thought is exhausting, his muscles screaming - a fin carves through the water like the sharp edge of a knife. His eyes widen.

“We can eat those.”

Sharks. It makes some strange kind of sense, to be saved by the predators that were set to kill them a moment before. Hell, with Flint hauling the other end of the rope, no amount of dehydration could keep Silver from noting the similarities. He knows he’s yelling as they haul the damn thing in, feels his teeth bare in something not quite a grin and not quite a snarl as Flint forces a knife through the thrashing body of their catch. He’s a dead man, doomed to the indifference of the savior, and Silver has never felt more alive.

They get two dead and in the boat before collapsing with exhaustion. The tug of gentle fingers in his hair is a blessing, making Silver’s eyes shutter and his breath come slow in relief. He luxuriates in the way his hair shifts gentle.

“Flint,” he breathes, turning and opening his eyes.

Later, he thanks any god or devil who might listen that he opened his eyes.

Flint sits at the farthest end of the skiff. He could never have reached halfway to Silver, which means- oh, it must mean-

“Silver,” murmurs Flint, the same reverent tone in his voice only making Silver’s chest tighten further. “That’s-“

“Wind.”

He can’t believe quite what he’s saying, but the way his skin raises in gooseflesh and his hair flies out cannot be lying.

“The wind’s back.”

Silver laughs. The sound comes so hoarse and ill-used it is hardly recognizable as a laugh, but he laughs nonetheless, and Flint, without words or voice, joins him in an inelegant cry of joy. Their eyes meet, and Silver finds the immensity of the ocean horizon gazing back at him with awe.

“We’re going home.”


	7. Chapter 7

**VII.** _Any Man who does not keep his Equipment clean, fit for Engagement, or neglect his Business, shall be cut from his Share, and shall receive such punishment as the Captain shall think fit._

In a cage is always an uneasy place to sleep, but most of the crew seem to manage just fine. It’s the heat, Silver reckons; a blazing, violent sun turned close and claggy come evening, and with the lack of food and the infernal listless waiting the majority of the men had taken the easy escape of unconsciousness. Despite it all, Silver is as desperately alert as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water across him.

Flint is gone to plead their case. More than that – Silver feels, in the deepest part beneath his heart, a roiling terror which insists that Flint is gone to his death. Their conversation rings in his ears until he almost wants to scream just to silence it. No regrets left, Flint had said, in the steady, measured tone of the lifelong liar. There was no mistaking it; Silver had heard it in his own voice often enough, and had held the same feeling of froth and nausea in his chest upon making his own confession.

For the seventh time that night, Silver wishes he had told the truth out on that launch, two sharks and his heart on the line. He may never again have the chance.

As if it would have gotten them anywhere different, if he had confessed. Perhaps he simply would have been killed swiftly, tossed overboard and left behind, his iron peg dragging him to his damnation. But Flint had looked so… _raw_ is the only word which comes to mind, bare flesh flayed and naked on display. So wanting. Silver aches at the thought. No man should go to his death denied his final, inarticulate wish.

Naked and wanting are not words he knows how to address, regarding Flint. His pulse races. Silver pushes it aside and counts the stars.

When Flint returns, Silver is indescribably grateful for his iron boot, for without it he isn’t sure he would have been able to make his way down to Flint at anything less than a run. Flint is _alive_. With the coat across his shoulders, Silver’s heart clenches, because whoever he might have spoken to that previous night was gone, replaced by Captain Flint once more.

In the dark, Silver had almost called him _James_. The harpoon in his heart tugs. 

All day, through meetings and negotiations, through the cacophony of weapons being sharpened and reloaded, Silver takes up the role of shadow. The pounding in his heart has settled into a pounding in his head, and the throbbing ache of his leg is growing steadily worse. He keeps pace with Flint as he strides about the sands, making plans and promises which Silver doesn’t hear, save for one fact.

Flint is leaving again, and will be leaving Silver behind.

Silver does not think he blinks until the sails disappear beyond the horizon, and when he does, the tears at once begin to fall. He makes it back to his hut in a blur. Distant chanting rises up with smoke and merges seamlessly with the screaming of his blood.

His racing, treacherous heart has forced apart the stitches. Something dark and foul is leaking from the leather of his iron boot. It takes all of Silver’s strength and concentration to open the buckles, gritting his teeth against the urge to slash the damned thing to shreds and hardly hearing his own cry of agony as he eases it away. The flesh beneath the leather has turned white, with livid purple streaks slithering up his veins. Blisters swell and ooze green, yellow, poisonous. Silver chokes on his own scream.

When Madi finds him he is weeping harder than the wound. Her eyes go wide in pity, cutting him sharper than any axe, and he knows in an instant she has seen straight through him. The mysteries of his heart are open, and she has read them all.

Silver thinks of Flint’s confession, thinks of the way his chest had tightened the moment he heard it and has not loosened a breath since. Flint’s deathbed confession, yet he had survived. Perhaps he will survive so long as Madi will hear his.

“I am acutely aware that I am not the first to have been a partner to him in this way,” Silver gasps out, and wonders if Madi knows what _partner_ means, and whether she could tell him. “And that the ones who have seen those depths before, they never surfaced again.”

The pressure against his leg shifts and he cries out, fresh tears running hot and shameful. Madi’s hand moves to cover his and squeezes. In a wild moment of terror, Silver remembers Flint’s hand in his during the first amputation, and sobs.

“Do you know,” he manages, “the strangest thing? He and I will be the end of one another. And yet…” Silver trails away. His next words come unbidden, borne on the waves of his tears. “And yet I think I would follow him to my death; follow him off the edge of this world; follow him until the sea drowned us and the sun burned us and we fell, right off the horizon.”

Another bout of fever takes him, nausea swelling in his belly, and he gulps back the tide of bile rising in his throat.

“You do not need to hold your words, you know,” Madi says, digging her fingers a little more firmly into his hand. “I was raised by slaves and sailors, Mr Silver, I assure you I can curse as well as any man you know.”

“In front of a princess?” Silver laughs, tears of pain welling in his eyes once more. “I am already an enemy of two kings at least, let us not make it a third. I’ve disgraced myself enough.”

“I would offer you my pardon.”

A visceral shudder rips through Silver at the word.

“You should know by now that I would never accept.” 

He’s trying to play it off as a joke, futile though he knows the attempt to be. Madi sees right through him, unflinching and unblinking. Silver wonders if she’ll tell him what she sees.

“No,” she says at length. “You would not. Not one of Flint’s men would.”

“Like I said,” says Silver, letting out a tentative breath as his wound is carefully, skillfully wrapped. “It is the strangest thing.”

“You do not know the strangest thing,” Madi replies, releasing her grip and making towards the door. Silver’s hand feels empty. He wonders when he last had someone hold his hand in simple comfort, and realises he doesn’t want to know the answer, except –

“What?” He turns, only barely wincing at his own desperate movement. “Madi? What is it?”

She pauses and gives him a small, enigmatic smile.

“Only that he says the same of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're into the home stretch now! Thank you so much to everyone reading especially those of you who have stuck around since chapter one - the slow burn and yearning is approaching its destination at last


	8. Chapter 8

**VIII.** _He that is found Guilty of Gambling shall suffer what Punishment the Captain and the Majority of the Company shall think fit._

Silver is astonished at the amount of effort it takes to appear nonchalant. He has spent his whole day anxiously preparing for Flint’s return, using his crutch at Madi’s insistence and under the reasoning that at least none of his men are there to bear witness to his weakness. 

In the centre of his hut he has dragged a low table, positioned his pillows and a chair as best he can to support two people. A pack of cards, a bottle of rum, a bowl of fruits.

“All it’s missing is the fucking candles,” he mutters to himself. It would be easier if he was lying. Silver wonders briefly if he is losing the ability. If the lies he’s told himself are finally becoming altogether more than he can bear.

Madi had dropped by early in the evening, and handed him a book – _Don Quixote_. In an effort to pass the time Silver thumbs idly through it, but though his eyes are fixed upon the page, his thoughts are across the horizon.

When Flint returns it is all Silver can do not to snatch him away the moment he steps ashore. He endures, worrying at a hangnail and re-reading the same page three dozen times at least, before at last Flint stops to see him.

“Captain, I-“

Flint waves a hand, effectively silencing Silver. He's gotten changed, Silver realises. His shirt had been caked with sweat and grime and blood that wasn’t his, his hair grown unkempt, his beard wild. Now his shirt is white; or, at least, as close to white as it can be, given the lack of washing facilities on the average pirate ship. His beard is trimmed, his hair shaved down smooth and short. He looks, in Silver’s private, treacherous opinion, amazing.

“Captain,” he says, “Who would have thought you clean up so well?”

He winces. So much for private. At least treacherous was right.

“You look like hell,” replies Flint, stepping into the hut. “Madi said you wanted to see me?”

Madi. Of fucking course she did. Silver isn’t sure whether to hug her or throttle her for daring to do such a thing. He shrugs in an attempt at friendly indifference.

“Hardly urgent.”

Flint’s eyebrow twitches, a quirk of interest.

“My quartermaster summons me, and dismisses me without so much as an explanation.”

“Now I didn’t say that.” He swallows hard. Damned nerves threatening to choke him. Some persuasive speaker he is, to be so afraid of his- friend? Captain? Something to him, at least. “Your quartermaster didn’t summon you. I did. John fucking Silver, like it or not. When last did you include yourself in shore leave?”

“I’m the captain.” Flint steps forward, into the cabin, into his space without a qualm. "I'm your captain.”

“And I speak for your men, all of whom have a distinctly worse time of things the more wound up you are. Come on. I have games, I have rum. You can even lecture me on your trip, though I’ve already had it all from Billy and Madi both.”

Flint raises an eyebrow higher.

“You had the princess summon me,” he says with slow deliberation, “for a social engagement?”

Silver grins. It’s close enough on truthful that it truly loosens his anxious chest a little.

“I’ve told you, Captain,” he says. “I’m a hard man not to like. I’ve friends in high places, now.”

For a moment the air between them rushes cold. Anticipation, a flood of fear, and the uncertainty of what’s to come.

“Alright,” says Flint, at last. “Though if you’re as bad a gambler as you are a liar in everything else, I’ll clean you out and I will not pay you back.”

“Whenever have I been known to shirk from risks?”

“All the fucking time,” Flint grumbles. The fondness gathering at the corner of his mouth is a temptation greater than any gold. He sits down. “Go on, then.”

Silver grins.

By the time the sun has dipped below the ocean skyline, Silver is down half a bottle of rum, every coin in his pocket, and all but the last of his self control. Flint started smiling around the third win. By the fifth, he’s openly gloating.

“You’ve got nothing left to bet.”

Silver sighs, biting at the corner of his lip and leaning back.

“Alright - I bet you one honest truth.”

“Not a chance.” Flint shakes his head. “Come on.”

“Fine.” He casts around, searching for something, and grins when his gaze lands back upon the table. “A ring, then.”

“Depriving you of your ornaments? You must think me heartless.”

“Or myself lucky.”

Lucky. That’s a joke, all right. He’s never been lucky in his life, thinks Silver, and there’s no sense in thinking it will change over one ring. Flint takes it from him in an embarrassingly short number of turns, particularly for a drunk man playing a much more drunk man, and laughs aloud. The rum has brought a gentle flush of pink to his cheeks. Silver’s mouth goes dry.

"Hand it over,” he says, holding out a palm.

With an exaggerated sigh, Silver tugs the ring from his finger. The night air sits hot against his skin, the rum burning inside of him. He aches for the ocean to take him. The absurdity of the gesture is tempered only by the absurdity of their position. Nothing else has made sense, Silver believes, for a long time. He is giving Flint a ring. How could it ever be otherwise? For a moment he considers dropping to one knee, but despite the fresh bandages he can still barely move the damn thing. Instead he simply reaches out and takes Flint by the hand.

His skin is rough as to be expected from any sailor, but what startles Silver is the softness of his touch; Flint holds himself as if he is afraid to have any weight, lest it prove too heavy to bear. His finger twitches minutely when Silver slides the ring, still warm from his own fourth finger, onto Flint's.

"You may kiss the groom," he says. It's supposed to be a joke. Instead all Silver hears is a liar's voice, and in his head the pounding, lashing storm of sincerity scares him more than he can remember.

Flint is looking at him with an expression so unfamiliar on his features that it takes Silver an embarrassing few moments to place it. Captain Flint - the demon spoken of in reverent fear throughout the colonies - is terrified.

“I’ll take that truth now,” he breathes, voice cracking around the edges.

“I…”

Silver shakes his head. There’s nothing he can say. Hell, he can’t bring himself to move, save for the flash of his eyes towards the soft, pink swell of Flint’s lips. A truth. In the moment, Silver believes perhaps this is the only truth he has ever had.

And then Flint kisses him, and Silver regrets ever thinking of this as drowning.


	9. Chapter 9

**IX.** _No lover in form of Man or Woman to be allowed among the crew; if any man is to be found seducing any, and carrying them to Sea, he is to suffer Death._

The kiss tastes of nothing – not blood, nor copper, nor ocean spray, not rum or salt or fruit. All Silver tastes is the softest hint of skin, aware – all too aware – that beneath it Flint is trembling. He takes one half-step back.

“John,” murmurs Flint, near enough almost to touch Silver’s lips again with every sound. “Tell me-“

The next touch of his lips upon Flint’s is a question he’s half terrified to hear answered. Flint lets out a slow, shaking breath. Silver swallows it down.

“Captain,” he whispers, then, emboldened by the shiver it elicits, adds “ _James_.”

The noise Flint makes then is one Silver will remember until he is dead and damned.

“Please,” he breathes. “James-“

“Shut up,” Flint replies. For the first time in his life, Silver obeys without question.

Of course, some measure of his silence is bought by the fact Flint’s teeth are doing something sinful to his lower lip. They stand, Flint’s arm wrapped tight about his lower back to support him, the table pushed aside, and Silver is for a moment bizarrely, blindingly thankful that they managed to stop his leg bleeding because all his blood is heading somewhere else in a hurry.

“Answer me honest,” growls Flint, in between kisses, hardly managing to get the words out through their mingled, panting breaths. “Silver, god- John- answer me.”

“Since two nights ago,” replies Silver. Flint shakes his head and bares his teeth, muttering his damnations into flushed and feverish skin.

“Liar.”

Claiming another kiss, Silver tries again, forcing out each word past his own desperate gasps.

“Since the sharks.”

“Liar.”

“Since Charles Town.”

_“Liar.”_

Flint’s teeth dig into the pulse of Silver’s throat and suck, pulling him in, closer, _inside_ , and Silver cries out. He’s hard in his trousers and the way Flint is holding him close leaves no room for doubt at its reciprocation.

Their shirts meet in a heap on the floor, followed by an odd number of boots and one pair of trousers. Flint’s eyes are blown wide and dark, his lips bitten a deep red which clashes horribly with his beard and makes Silver laugh, joy bubbling up from a well so long forgotten he had thought it dry. He stumbles and falls upon the chair. At once Flint drops to his knees, easing away Silver’s trousers and running a reverent hand an inch above the bandages of his leg.

“I remember this,” Silver quips, laughter failing to hide the needy, wanting edge to his voice. “In the cabin-“

“Delirious with fever,” murmurs Flint, “half mad.”

“More than half. Since then.”

“Liar.”

The curl of his lips is brimming over with affection. He brushes them against Silver’s inner thigh, eliciting a soft gasp.

“Since the very first moment I saw you.”

“You shit,” the words pressed direct to skin, a benediction, a smile.

“Since before.”

And something in Silver’s chest cracks clean in two at the way Flint looks up, and does not call him a liar. Silver grabs his chin, guides him up into another kiss, until Flint is almost straddling Silver’s lap. He gentles his mouth, tears threatening to overflow.

“James,” he says again, just for the joy of saying it. Flint surges forward. His muscles relax, pressed close to every inch of Silver’s chest, but his fingers tighten as though someone will rip them apart. Flint is trembling.

“John.”

He sounds like he’s pleading.

“ _John_.”

“I have you,” Silver tells him, and kisses him breathless again.

They stumble from the chair to the bed, not letting go for even one moment, one breath apart too much to bear. Silver feels drunk on the mere touch of skin upon skin. He’s going to spend his life counting the freckles on Flint’s back, he decides. It’s only when Flint laughs that he realises he said it aloud; it’s the sweetest sound that Silver has ever heard.

Words give way to simple sounds, hushed whispers like the touch of fingers in the dark. Silver is encompassed in heat, and feels as though he’s taken his first cool, clean breath in months. They both pretend not to notice the tears wetting Flint’s cheeks as he cries out his ecstasy.

Together they lie beneath the stars and the canopy. Flint remains draped atop him, the weight of him a soothing reminder that all they have is real. Silver buries his face in the crook of Flint’s neck and takes a long, slow breath. For the first time in months, he takes delight in the taste of salt upon his lips.

“It was since you taught me how to cook that pig,” he says mildly, hoping against hope that Flint – that James won’t hear the weight of the sincerity. “That day I first saw you, and saw two things.”

“Oh?”

James’ breath is gentle against his cheek. Without looking he knows the weight of those fathomless eyes upon him.

“I saw you truly cared to keep me alive. It may have still been wholly reliant upon my knowledge of the page, yes; but there was some hope, then, I thought, that we might truly become friends.”

“Friends,” echoes Flint, laughter in his voice. Silver smiles.

“Shut up. Anyway, the other thing I saw that day was that you could cook. Cook well, at that. Like you enjoyed it. And I thought to myself, my god.” The memory takes his voice low and contemplative. Each word a speck upon an open sea. “My god, I need to know where he learned that.”

He turns then, meeting Flint’s eyes. The look he finds there makes the breath catch in his throat.

“Since then.”

Flint looks at him, and the sincerity feels like it’s splitting Silver’s heart clean open. He clears his throat and averts his eyes. With one finger, Silver traces the crescent on his arm.

“Since you stood up and made that stupid fucking daily announcement.”

“No.”

“Since you lost your leg.”

“No.” Silver shakes his head. “You’re a rotten liar.”

“I don’t know,” Flint says, all trace of pretense gone. His eyes rove Silver’s features. “Since two nights ago. Since the moment we met. Since before.”

He leans in, claiming another languid kiss, a brush of lips, no heat above the warmth.

“I mean it,” he murmurs into Flint’s skin. “Every single star around that moon of yours.”

“Some fearsome pirate you are,” laughs Flint.

“I never wanted to be a fucking pirate.”

Flint pulls him nearer, as though even saying it might undo all the time Silver has spent being exactly that, however he denies it. The warmth of his arms is enough to set Silver yawning, halfway asleep. As he drifts away, Flint presses his mouth close to Silver’s ear and speaks so softly that it’s almost possible he’s imagining it.

“Neither did I.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'll probably update faster the more feedback I receive, if you feel so inclined


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